The Final Voyage
by shizutte
Summary: Clow and Yuuko backstory, based on CCS, xxxholic, and tsubasa.
1. Chapter 1

She wasn't planning to live forever.

There are many who seek the subtle arts to prolong life, and those who didn't found but the option unfurling in their path gladly ran into its arms.

The unfortunate consequence of too much power, said Clow Reed, is that you forget to die.

He smiled wryly, and looked past the top of her shoulders.

She hadn't told him, that she had already planned to die, soon.

Ichihara Yuuko was brought up knowing that death would not come to her unless she chose to summon it, yet the only thing that set her apart from the average human was that she would have the convenience of being able prepare and die at a suitable time.

"The true blessing of power lies not only in the ability to decide when to die, but also death in itself."

As a child she did not yet understand the full meaning of those words. And when, in a warm spring day, her parents quietly hugged her and bade her farewell, she was struck by an emotion raw and vicious.

"Weep if it comforts you, but be glad for us, for you will understand when the time is right." Her mother had said.

Now, she understands.

It would be unthinkable not to die.

* * *

><p>I am back to writing fanfictions...<p>

*smacks self* I really shouldn't do it. But hell, exam makes one want to do anything but study.

Was rewatching Cardcaptor Sakura, the bits with Clow/Eriol in it. And it struck me how Spinel and Ruby had butterfly wings. Oh Clamp...


	2. Chapter 2

Clow regarded the slender, feline form of the women seated across from him, slowly sipping her rice wine.

Yuuko was going to die.

He did not need to be told to know that. Yuuko was his love personified, it does not take much for him to notice, the well-erased but lingering tinge of her magic fading away in the morning from the store room, the way she greeted those sudden and sombre guests from faraway places, and the way she thoughtfully gazed a second longer at her favourite kimono before folding over the paper cover.

Clow wondered if Yuuko was going to tell him, or perhaps she would simply one day disappear without the promising scent of return. Or perhaps, he would wake one day with but a nagging sense of some forgotten past. There are few things beyond Yuuko s ability.

She was after-all, of a kind completely different from him, a mere man born a human knowing only the inevitability of death, yet now in possession of enough power to stave off death. He wondered if she understood enough of him to know that he would not ask her to stay even though he knew she could if he wanted to. And he wondered if she knew that, would she also know that he would ache in his love for her, and still walk down the same path.

Perhaps she knew all of it, and see no need to tell him.

When did she cease thinking of him as a child, Clow wondered, or maybe, he would always be somewhat a child in her eyes.

Maybe it does not matter anymore.

He should start making one last kimono, for her last trip. It would be the least he could do, that she was to leave, in his and no one else's embrace.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a warm spring night.

Perfect for sitting on the cool open-air corridor in Yuuko's house, facing her favourite cherry tree. The tree was coming to the end of its blooming season. Petals drifted down in piles of pale-pink snow, and melted into the puddles of soft silver moonlight.

They savoured her best bottle of wine, saved for the last cherry-watching night of this year's spring, washed down with talks of their recent work.

Eventually, the mindless banter slowly faded away into a pregnant silence.

Yuuko poured herself more wine, and nonchalantly mentioned.

"Clow, I'm going on a journey tomorrow"

"I know," He gazed at the moon "a journey without return."

Yuuko paused, and studied his face. Clow kept his eyes fixed on the moon.

"You've grown" She remarked, as though at the most unsurprising thing.

"Sometimes I wish I didn't" He smiled. It takes all he could do to continue trying to stare at the moon. The sheer solidity of the light sinking an anchor into his wavering will.

Yuuko filled the wine cup in his hands, sighed soundlessly, and then suddenly smirked.

"Ah...sometimes I do miss the annoying four-eyed brat who could whip up a meal to die for in the blink of an eye."

Clow rebutted, "Sometimes, I wish I still know you only as that elegant and noble lady of the shrine."

How long have you suffered in regret? She giggled.

"I have no regrets."

"That s good."

Yuuko jumped to her feet, "A toast to the sakura and the moon!" She laughed, waving her cup in the night air.

"A toast to the sakura, the moon, and us." He added, bemused.

"And to us!" She shouted, and danced around the cherry tree, like a girl.

Yuuko downed her wine, and suddenly reverted to her usual serene composure.

Yuuko set the sake cup down with almost unnecessary care, and turned to face him. She leaned close, her face thrown in shadows by the moonlight lining her profile, yet glowing with their own soft

light. A strand of her long black hair glides down from her shoulder, its tip brushing past the back of his hand. Clow resisted a passing urge to close his hand over it.

Farewell"

He watched her lips, and heard his own reply ring in his ear.

"Have a safe trip"


	4. Chapter 4

Clow woke early next morning, for there was much to do.

He did the laundry, watered the garden, dusted all the books in the library, and refreshed the barrier spells around the house. There was a satisfaction in doing things by hand, his cards watching in uncharacteristic silence, and Yue for once helped with a clumsiness that he would otherwise hate to be seen with. Cerberus pretended to nap, the tip of his tail swatting invisible flies.

Five minutes past five in the late afternoon, just as he was drying the last porcelain saucer, the front gate spells gave a weak shiver, flickered and faltered.

About time.

Clow placed the last saucer gently in the cupboard, and coated everything with a good shatter-proof spell, barely a second before the kitchen door burst open violently on its hinges, or what used to be its hinges. Yue bit his lips in disdain, and Cerberus materialised, fully awake, on Clow's side.

"Where is she?" The intruder growled with well-calibrated menace, a pale hand clutching his travel-cloak harder than necessary.

Clow calmed his guardians and gently covered them with a spell of sleep, leaving the intruder suddenly standing in a pool of his own brooding silence with nowhere to lash out.

After a length of silence too short to be satisfactory and too long to be comfortable, the kettle whistled.

Clow dismissed fire, and smiled, "Tea as usual?"

As if released from the hold of petrification, the intruder crossed the kitchen in a blink, and would have lifted Clow off his feet with a brutal grip on his collar, were Clow not the taller of the two by a slight margin. He yelled, in a young brash rasp hoarse from disuse,

"Answer my question."

Clow looked down and regarded his second cousin twice removed, trying to recall the last time he had seen the brooding child he knew from so long ago in such open rage.

Windy caught the teapot before it hit the floor, and positioned it back onto the kitchen table.

"Don't ask questions, if the answer is not what you want to hear."

Clow gently answered, directing the young man's eyes with his gaze, across the kitchen and through the door leading to the study. There on the centre of the mahogany table lay a crystal sphere cushioned in silk of red and black, its glow only noticeable under close scrutiny, even in the gloom of the unlit room. Even though Yuuko had left not unlike a cat, enviously guarding her right to a graceful last appearance, Clow could not bear not to knowing to the last moment, as though this selfish piece of knowledge would render his ownership of their relationship more complete.

And there was no better way to express what he was sure he would shatter to give voice to.

They both stared at the sphere, and the young man was the first to look away. He let go of Clow, and crumpled upon himself. Still enshrouded in his dirt-black cloak, he reminded Clow strangely of a bat caught in the rain.

"Come sit down, Fei Wang, the tea is ready."

There is really nothing else he could say.

Clow averted his eyes from the violent effort visible on the face of someone holding back tears, and instead turned to the window to study the grey clouds of a sunless dusk.

If only he could permit himself the relief of sorrow.

* * *

><p>On second thought, maybe I should try finish writing this before exams, for else, I might never end up finishing it once the ever-looming death by exams is gone...<p> 


End file.
